I would have loved to have commented on your article on the Good Housekeeping website, Ketogenic Diets Are B.S. for Weight Loss — Here’s Why, but I note with some disappointment that responses are not welcome there. You will understand my having opted for an external platform.

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“Keto could potentially hurt your health” – well, “could” and “potentially” are a bit redundant together, which suggests that someone was exercising quite a reach for that tagline. Crossing the road “could” “potentially” hurt my health. You “could” “potentially” be struck by lightning while typing your next article in your sleep, but you won’t find those possibilities in any headlines.

“…use fat for energy instead of the body’s preferred source, sugar” – I’m not sure how you define “preferred,” but, if you mean the way the body immediately sets out to burn ingested sugar and/or shunt it into your fat cells as fast as is naturally possible in order to remove this toxic substance from the blood stream, then yes, it is the fuel we prefer to burn first. If you mean that the body loves to live in a chronic state of inflammation, secreting a sinful amount of insulin around the clock to combat the biological emergency that is high blood glucose, resulting in the insulin resistance that’s a precursor to Type II diabetes, then I would suggest that this is hardly a “preferred” state of affairs.

The ketogenic diet may work for you personally right now, and if that's the case, then go for it — as long as you inform your physician about your diet, medical history, and medications. It's your choice to eat keto and make it work for you.

But from a public health standpoint, making a sweeping generalization in support of this diet would be negligent. It's my job as a registered dietitian (RD) to evaluate all the research in the context of scientific consensus, study strength, and long-term risk factors. Collectively, the existing information indicates that the keto diet can lead to nutrient deficiencies and prove difficult to adhere to long-term.

If you want to see just how much defensiveness can be mustered on demand, check it out.

I succumbed. Egads - what a mess! Two mistakes that jumped out at me were the idea that keto is low calorie & that the diet promotes a lot of processed meats. Neither is true overall, tho those of us who need to lose weight eat fewer calories than those who have stabilized their weight. And some people go overboard on bacon.

And a third - don't dietitians recommend vitamins & other supplements for people on whatever diet they promote? So why is it a bad idea for those eating lchf?

The GH article is an opinion piece. It starts with gross mischaracterizations like "low-calorie, high-fat" or "seemingly new diet plan". The writer seems to confuse the ketogenic diet with the medical ketogenic diet, when she writes that "ketogenic diets(note the plural) were used as a medical...". There's only one medical ketogenic diet, as far as I'm aware, but there are several popular diets which claim to be ketogenic like Atkins, Protein Power, Eenfeldt's LCHF, etc.

In the first paragraph, the writer links to another article she wrote where we get a definition of ketogenic diet, but more to the point a bit more of her opinion about it, and I quote:

Quote:

If an extreme diet can affect brain chemistry, it may be too extreme for you.

Allow me to illustrate a brilliant fallacy. If a ketogenic diet affects brain chemistry as a function of its macro-nutrient ratio, then all diets affect brain chemistry by doing the same, including the official guidelines which can be deemed as extreme as a ketogenic diet by virtue of being the polar opposite in terms of macro-nutrient ratio. Ergo, if a diet is too extreme for you by virtue of its effect on brain chemistry, and if the official guidelines diet causes polar opposite effects on brain chemistry, then official guidelines is equally too extreme for you. Therefore, a middle ground, i.e. a diet that does not affect brain chemistry, is the only possible choice left. But then, that is an impossible choice because the effect on brain chemistry is due strictly to macro ratio, and all diets manipulate macro ratios to at least some extent - including a middle ground - therefore all diets have an effect on brain chemistry, therefore all diets are too extreme for you. Told you it was a brilliant fallacy, but I doubt the writer could even imagine the logic I just demonstrated here, or she wouldn't have written such a brilliant fallacy in the first place.

Quote:

Indeed, there's plenty of research to support ketogenic diets in the treatment of some devastating neurological conditions. But can it really help the average Joe or Joanne lose weight? Well, yes, in theory — especially ultra low-calorie versions. But is it suitable for long-term, sustainable weight loss and improved health? The jury's still out on that.

The paragraph above appears to be the crux of the article and the basis for why ketogenic diets are BS. First, her statement "in theory" is clear indication that she is unaware of probably the most reliable comparative dietary experiment bar none - the A-TO-Z study by Chris Gardner. Or she wouldn't say "in theory" or any BS of her own when summarizing "plenty of research" she alludes to. Second, that same reliable experiment shows us that no diet is sustainable long-term. The adherence curve in this experiment mirrors all other dietary experiments. Except one - the official dietary guidelines - which appears to be the sole diet any particular population adheres to for any length of time.

The writer continues with gross mischaracterizations in the paragraph titled "How KD's work", where she explains that the diet is boring as we eat only coconut oil and butter for months on end. I'm gonna take a shot in the dark here and state unequivocally that nobody on this planet does this now or has ever done this or will ever do this at any time in the history of homo-sapiens sapiens, or indeed any species on any planet in any universe in the history of time. If there's a single human that has ever come close, it's probably me when I ate a stick of butter for lunch between nines on the golf course, but then only occasionally, and I often didn't even finish the stick cuz butter is just so filling. But then it's highly unlikely that the writer would know anything about me, I'm nobody special.

So, kept on reading the article, then I decided there's no point. WTF is Good Housekeeping doing with a diet column? Also, I believe the writer isn't actually writing her personal opinion, but instead writes for a living and thus any opinion expressed therein are expressed for the purpose of fulfilling the writer's professional obligations which may include gross mischaracterizations for example that would elicit a greater response and in turn a greater readership and in turn a greater ad revenue. It's possible that my perception here is a coincidence, but I recently stumbled on Harry G. Frankfurt's On Bullshit, so that I'm sufficiently more aware of BS in the context of commerce to perceive the article in this way. I guess I also answered my own rhetorical question "WTF is Good Housekeeping doing with a diet column?".

To summarize this context, the writer has no respect nor concern for the truth, and instead is concerned purely with the intended outcome. This explains the gross mischaracterizations, the conspicuous omissions of highly reliable scientific dietary experiments, the brilliant fallacy, and all other things bullshit contained therein. Of significant note, comments are not part of Good Housekeeping's diet column, therefore discussion is certainly not the intended outcome.

As for braintw's blog post, I could have written it as is and stamped my own name on it. We even agree on the BS aspect, i.e. "...for the purpose of generating clicks". Though I wouldn't have gone on so much about anthropological hypotheses, because none of it can be demonstrated cuz nobody alive today or indeed during the time since the beginning of modern civilization some few thousand years ago was alive back then to confirm or refute those hypotheses. Instead, I prefer to stick to current experiments like that A-TO-Z study.

Ketogenic diets affect brain chemistry, all right - they clear out the brain fog caused by the high-carb diets that dieticians and other Registered Dogmatists recommend.

We have to brace ourselves for more and more of this kind of "marshmallow fluff" that is all empty content. At least they have dropped the reflexive "you will have a heart attack three days in!" that was the staple of coverage when Atkins first came on the scene in 1972.

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But they have hung onto the sturdy standy: "You can't stay on it!"

True. I've only done it going on fourteen years at this point

I hate to say it, but by and large that statement is not far from the truth. This forum is a wasteland of thousands of people who gave low carb a go, but did not stick to it. I myself attempted and failed at 'low carb dieting' dozens of times over more than 2 decades. Until now I never stuck to it longer than 6 months and even then I was cheating throughout.

So why do so many people fail at this WOE? I think the reasons that I failed before are common to most people that don't succeed. Reasons such as...

Bad dietary advice from the "professionals". They told us that we need carbs and that all that meat & fat in a LCHF diet was bad for your health. They steered us obese people onto a "low fat" diet that we cannot sustain with any more success. IMO - the only people who can succeed on a low fat diet are those that didn't have much of a weight issue in the first place. "Look at those healthy people eating a low fat lifestyle. Do what they do and you will be like them." Sounds simple enough. Unfortunately it doesn't work the way.

The world told us that food was food. A calorie is a calorie. Eat less, exercise more. Everything in moderation, but focus your everyday eating on healthy low fat fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grain foods. When dieting be sure to build "rewards", cheat days, and diet breaks into your plan so that you don't feel deprived and give up. Get your fat butt off the couch and get moving! No gravity was ever given to the addictive nature of processed carbs and sugar. There was a total lack of understanding about what some "food" did to insulin and BG levels. Part of my success is finally realizing food is not just about the calorie count. There are foods that I should not be eating -- addictive foods that keep me coming back -- foods that hammered my body with sugar, making me fat and sick over time. So "everything in moderation" & "Cheat Days"??? Terrible advice for an addict. But do you know what? That is exactly the advice I wanted to hear. Why? Because I was dying for some carbs and those cliché, oft repeated phrases were the perfect excuse to indulge.

We live in a carb centric world. The food industry plasters us daily with advertisements to buy and eat their crappy food - much of it under the guise of being "healthy" and good for us. Our traditions and daily food preferences & habits eating the SAD were carb centric. In the 1980's I tried to eat a better version of SAD eating government sanctioned healthy foods, avoiding fat, drinking juice instead of soda, etc. I gained my first 100 pounds trying to do that. Later on I preferred a poorer version of SAD: High fat, high protein, and very high carb processed food. I also ate fast food regularly. Any attempt at dieting was only going to be a temporary measure. I had no intention of making LC a lifestyle. I'd just be trading obesity for a heart attack, right? Well, that excuse is as good as any. But truth be told I was a carb addict and I didn't want to give them up.

So what could I do? I was a lost puppy just like most every obese person in this world. The only diet I could do to lose weight was bad for my health, or so I've been told. Sticking to a low carb diet was hard. Cravings were terrible and the pull to return to my old ways was strong. What did it matter; I could never keep the weight off anyway. Confusion reigns. Nothing works. I may as well just eat what I want until I have a need to lose weight again.

I only accepted that carbs truly are addictive after I'd broken free from them. That didn't happen until I was 50, weighed 400+ pounds, and was sick with diabetes. I never did low carb the right way before. I never planned on making this WOE a lifestyle. Even once I decided to do the lifestyle thing, the first several months were still very hard. It seems so much easier now, but it was a hard road to get here. I still wonder if I would have made it if I hadn't had multiple symptoms of diabetes all disappear during those early months when I was trying so hard to stick with my program. I'll never know for sure. I have been eating this way for 4 years now. LCHF does feel like my normal diet now and I have little trouble avoiding those foods that I consider poison to my body. Nothing is certain, but I feel confident that I will keep on doing my LCHF thing for the rest of my days.

So I made it. However, I've lost count of the number of LC buddies I've made on this forum who show up, do well for a while, and then fall off the wagon. Reaching LC nirvana is a rare accomplishment. But I think that isn't all that hard to do if you do it right. I am as weak as they come. I can't do it the hard way. I didn't overcome the odds to lose 250 pounds. I found the right path - one easy enough for me to do. Figuring out how to do this right is what is hard. There is so much noise, noise, noise out there screwing people up. Stick to your plan. Plan on making it how you eat for life NO MATTER WHAT. Stop cheating. Lose the cravings. Accept that this is a healthy way to eat. Watch your health markers get better over time. Before long you will be there. Keep listening to bad advice and you will inevitably wind up right back where you started. It happens every time.

When it's pointed out that "fat has more calorie per gram than carbohydrate or protein," nobody seems to care that this doesn't seem to make it particularly easy to stick to a low fat diet. Research scientists repeat this statement all the time in various articles, with nothing to back it up but "common sense." Things are not true because they're obvious, they're true because they're true.

Where do people look then? They look for compliance issues, try to find someway to trick people into being happy with less. Eating foods with fatty texture/mouth feel but no fat. Have you tried eating with smaller utensils, off of tiny little plates? Maybe living in a micro-home will work (doesn't that work for goldfish or something)? Eat slowly, or if you think you're hungry, try pretending that you're eating something. Eat mindfully, pretend parsley on rice cakes becomes more instead of less satisfying if you pay more attention to it.

But if you're hoping to make low carb work, expect everybody to tell you about how it can't work, and if it did, you wouldn't stick to it, and if you do, you'll die if you don't kill the planet first.

I hate to say it, but by and large that statement is not far from the truth. This forum is a wasteland of thousands of people who gave low carb a go, but did not stick to it. I myself attempted and failed at 'low carb dieting' dozens of times over more than 2 decades. Until now I never stuck to it longer than 6 months and even then I was cheating throughout.

The use of the word "can't" implies an absolute impossibility. As much as I feel Ken's point is valid in that there are various reasons why people may find it difficult to get the results they're looking for with LCHF, WereBear and the rest of us who continue to hang around after reaching their goals are proof that it is still possible nonetheless.

To quote Lou Reed: "Impossible does not mean difficult. Difficult is getting a Nobel Prize; impossible is eating the sun."

To quote Lou Reed: "Impossible does not mean difficult. Difficult is getting a Nobel Prize; impossible is eating the sun."

I love that!

I agree with Ken that sometimes the whole world seems against the lowcarber... because it is. Breakrooms full of cheap "treats," miles of fast food on the way home, family celebrations full of tension; Other People are a lowcarber's greatest challenge.

Smoking broke its hold on people partly because it got more and more difficult to find a place to smoke. How well would any addict do if every road was full of drive through places to get their drug?

There's no question in my mind that sugar and flour are drugs. We now have scientific proof as laid out in the book Wheatbelly. So a lot of this pushback is likely just the unacknowledged addict, rationalizing.

War on bread! Don't be ashamed of pasta! Kids gotta have candy! It's harmless.